Regarding "the cheapest pilots set the floor for the rest of us" it can again be noted that the NLH net salary is better than the general salary in Scandinavia, better than the salary given by airlines such as SAS.
I'll take a pepsi-challenge any day of the week with you on that one.
Net salary is only a part of the costs of employing a pilot in Scandinavia, something NLH knows very well or we wouldn't be having this discussion. As you no doubt are aware, on top of net salary you
must add
a) employment and social taxes
b) pension contributions
c) insurance contributions
d) social entitlement benefits such as maternity and welfare leave
e) additional crewing for sickness and not fit scenarios.
f) administration costs for Human Resources, workplace well being, employee advancement education and employee union administration costs.
In Scandinavia, it costs a company 2 million to employ a 1 million net salary employee who receives
all the benefits above. By using Risworth or Parc, NLH in essence pays 1.2 million to employ a 1 million net salary employee who gets
none of the benefits listed above. That's almost half the payroll expense for the company, so please spare us the net salary argument.
I completely agree; what NLH is doing is perfectly legal and you can't blame them for setting it up. My problem is that
colleges are making this possible by selling themselves ridiculously cheap, foregoing all the benefits that we as a group worked 50+ years to achieve, and completely underbidding the rest of us.
But I'll give you this. There's too many pilots in the world, and an overabundance of supply drives down the prices. It's that simple, and we're all idiots for choosing this profession in the first place. At least if you have the brains to do something else.